Viatris and National Pharmacies’ sustainability initiative surpasses expectations, raising the bar for industry

Statistics underscore the healthcare industry’s carbon footprint, accountable for 4.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions and an even more noteworthy 7% in Australia. Alarmingly, these emissions surpass those of the aviation industry by over double, signalling an urgent need for intervention. To address this, Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care, Ged Kearney MP, launched Australia’s first National Health and Climate Strategy in December 2023.

In an interview with Health Industry Hub, Sylvain Vigneault, Country Manager of Viatris, and Vito Borrello, Chief Executive for National Pharmacies, discussed the growing importance of environmental sustainability in the healthcare sector and their collaborative efforts in this area.

“We are committed to our patients to have a better life at every stages of their life. For us, the physical health of the patient is directly linked with the environment,” Vigneault emphasised.

Discussing the recently launched National Health and Climate Strategy, Vigneault and Borrello highlighted its relevance to pharmaceutical sector and community pharmacies.

Turning to their own strategic partnership in the blister recycling sustainability program, Vigneault and Borrello shared insights into its inception and development.

“We achieved more than double our goal for recycling in the first four months alone. The numbers clearly surpassed our expectations. For us success is the continued growth of the program across our stores and for more community pharmacies to adopt the program,” Borrello stated.

Offering advice to other organisations considering similar sustainability programs, Vigneault said “I wouldn’t say there were any unusual roadblocks, more so the considerations like funding allocation and resource management.”

For National Pharmacies, there were some internal hesitations regarding the program’s potential scale. However, Borrello said “Our members clearly wanted to do the right thing recycling their blister packs, and we were able to give them the means to do so.”

Looking ahead, the duo expressed optimism about the program’s scalability and its potential to inspire broader industry-wide change.

In reimagining healthcare across the entire patient journey, Health Industry Hub^TM is the only one-stop-hub uniting the diversity of the Pharma, MedTech, Diagnostics & Biotech sectors to inspire meaningful change.

The Health Industry Hub^TM content is copyright protected. Access is available under individual user licenses. Please click here to subscribe and visit T&Cs here.